Jim Griggs calls out “fire in the hole” as Kylee Mangold, 7, left, and Mackenzie Mangold, 10, right, watch on at Fort Assiniboine during the Living History Weeekend in Havre. (Photo: TERRI LONG FOX/FOR THE TRIBUNE)

The Officers Amusement Hall stands out among the fort’s brick buildings. It’s made with stone cut from the Missouri Breaks since the military wouldn’t authorize bricks for the “frivolous” building. (Photo: TRIBUNE PHOTO/KRISTEN INBODY)

Eliza Shaw Dodd, portrayed by Loy Chvilicek, makes her way across the grounds at Fort Assinniboine, Saturday, June 7, 2014. Dodd, the wife of the chaplain who served at the fort, kept a detailed diary of life at the fort in the late 1800’s. (Photo: TERRI LONG FOX/FOR THE TRIBUNE)

Story Highlights

HAVRE – The military drills stopped more than a century ago on the former parade ground at Fort Assinniboine. But as he sits on a porch of a former library overlooking the grounds, historian Gary Wilson imagines the scene in 1885.

The last tourist has left on this evening. Workers have walked away from the deck they're repairing. Mourning doves coo in the trees, which rustle in the breeze. A shelter belt cuts across the former parade grounds, flanked still by a few of the buildings where soldiers lived, worked, learned and played.

With 1,000 people in the camp in 1885, the noise must have been constant 129 years ago.

During the summer, "the troops are scattered across Montana. In summer you'd not see as many, but early fall would be quite a scene," Wilson says.

"I would have wanted to watch the women on mail day as the stagecoach arrived from Fort Benton," Wilson says. "Can't you just imagine mail day? All the women would go together. They were a tight group. Even though the fort was nice, it was still scary and lonesome at times."

In the fall, the social circuit kicked into gear.

The Officers Amusement Hall stands out among the fort's brick buildings. It's made with stone cut from the Missouri Breaks since the military wouldn't authorize bricks for the "frivolous" building.

As he lifts a garage door awkwardly cut into the hall, Wilson steps onto a wooden floor that was once the setting for dances. Wavy glass signifies original window. A mural of a gate remains on the walls behind what was a stage, where officers and their wives put on plays. Elaborate rounds of charades were popular, too.

"They would have had weekly hops, but they loved formal dances," Wilson says. "You can imagine an evening with 60 people, the festivities, the women who spent all summer sewing new dresses."

Among those tripping the light fantastic would have been Lt. John J. Pershing, a drinking, womanizing officer who later won military honor commanding American forces in World War I. However, Gen. Nelson A. Miles is the legendary figure who Wilson would have liked to meet if he'd walked the fort boardwalk in its heyday.

"General Miles would have walked here," he says. "What a great general."

Miles served in the Civil War and was ordered to the Miles City area after the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.

"Most of the military showed up in Montana after Gen. Custer's defeat. They were in such shock, they mostly hung around and used up supplies. Then they left and told Miles to deal with it," Wilson says. "He chased Sioux all over eastern Montana."

"It was considered one of the most important forts in the U.S. for all the Indian trails that crossed through here," Wilson says.

Ten companies of infantry and cavalry used the fort as their headquarters, with a bakery, laundry, blacksmith, general store, chapel, post office, hotel, library, hospital and school at the fort, which predates nearby Havre. Its infrastructure included a sewer and water system.

Col. John R. Brooke, stationed at Fort Shaw, picked the spot for its visibility, the creeks nearby and access to the trail connecting forts, including Fort Benton.

"Before the fort, the military was contending with large numbers of Sioux up here," though treaties stipulated the land belonged to the Blackfeet, Gros Ventre and the Assinniboine, Wilson says. "They didn't have the manpower to move the Sioux out. They couldn't really contend until they built this fort."

Sorting out the Indians who had signed treaties with the Canadian government but crossed into Montana and tribes trying to join others in Canada kept the military busy. Cree raiders and Metis rebels crossed Canadian border into Montana.

"The borders meant nothing to them, of course," Wilson says.

The 18th Infantry left Atlanta for Montana in the spring of 1879 by train to Bismark, N.D., and then by three steamboats to Coal Banks Landing along the Missouri River.

"I'm sure it was not a fun trip," Wilson says. "Can you imagine what that trip was like, and then three days to get here, and then they were ambushed on top of everything. That first summer the soldiers learned they would be grunts, making bricks instead of fighting Indians."

With Metis also making bricks, buildings went up fast, though some of the 600 soldiers had to winter at other forts the first year. Then came roads and telegraph wires.

Of the 104 buildings that made up the fort, 14 remain — more than at any fort of the Old Forts Trail. One of those speaks to the eastern comforts that could be had, for the right price.

Charles Broadwater, remembered for his luxury hotel in Helena, was the post trader.

"He had to worry about supplying those officers and their families, and they're used to eating well," Wilson says as he walks along Broadwater's warehouse and store.

"If you had the money, you could get goods from New York, London and Paris," he says. "This was the first shopping mall in northern Montana. Of his fantastic empire, that's what's left."

One of the most iconic buildings is the Company Officers' Quarters, a six-unit apartment complex built in 1880 with an octagonal turret.

"This was built when there were still forts in Texas with dirt floors that wives had to deal with. This tower was just for architecture's sake. Whatever architecture was en vogue back east they used here," Wilson says as he stands before the building and imagines it with the picket fence and a wood walkway it once had.

"Husbands and wives would walk up and down the boardwalks," he says. "Inside, they didn't have heavy furniture because they had to pay to move it post to post."

The man most in demand around the fort was the carpenter, as women needed his skill and muscle power around the house.

"I bet that guy got lots of cakes and pies," he says.

Holding down the fort

Fort Assinniboine closed in 1911.

Recognizing the fort's economic significance to the area, U.S. Rep. Charles Pray of Fort Benton fought to keep it in open, but when Fort Harrison in Helena and Fort Missoula were threatened with closure, Fort Assinniboine was no longer a priority.

"Local people thought, let's open it to homesteading," Wilson says.

Most of the military's lands were opened to homesteading. Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation was carved out, as was what would become Beaver Creek Park. The fort itself became Montana State University's Northern Agricultural Research Center. Components of the buildings went to institutions around the state.

"A lot of artifacts went out of this place. It's sad," he says.

The ag station used the historic buildings for their own purposes. Though their use left some buildings mangled, Wilson is grateful the ag station saved what it did.

"I can't get upset about them. They came here to make farming better, and if not for them, there'd be nothing," he says. "Our relationship with the ag station is really good."

Wilson is the last active member of the original board members of the Fort Assinniboine Preservation Association. He remembers the big dreams they started with in 1988 and the hurdles they've faced funding them.

About $500,000 has gone into restoration and stabilization at the fort, and "you could put millions into this place," Wilson says. "We've done crisis management."

Lately, the cause has attracted some great community leaders. About 500 people visit the fort in the summer, but a new sign going up along U.S. Highway 87 will help people find the fort, he says.

"At times it's been just a matter of holding the group together and the buildings from falling down," Wilson says. "As the years have gone by, it's gotten so much better."

Wilson's dedication to the fort has been a part-time job or better across the last few decades.

"I'd hate to figure out how much time I spent. When you have a dream about something, you don't want to give it up," he says. "It's such a magnificent place. I just couldn't see letting it go."

Reach Tribune Staff Writer Kristen Inbody at 791-1490 or by email at kinbody@greatfallstribune.com.

Take your own Journey of the Imagination

If you could go anywhere in Montana history, where would you travel? What would you hope to see? Who would you want to meet?

We'd like to hear your idea and may connect with you for a future story. Please send a note to Kristen Inbody at kinbody@greatfallstribune.com or to Great Falls Tribune, 205 River Drive S., Great Falls, MT 59403.

See Fort Assinniboine

Tours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. On weekends, tours are offered at noon and 5 p.m. A tour is $5 to $7 by age.

Find the fort six miles southwest of Havre off U.S. Highway 87 at the Montana State University's Northern Agricultural Research Station.